Trying my hand at New Granada and I have officially decided to go all or nothing against the USA.
The weak Navy and scarce workers wasn't as crippling as I thought it would be. After a campaign against Central America, I secured Manaus (that thick jungle is an excellent deterrent to aggressive South American powers), before kicking the British out of Guyana, Belize, and Jamaica, all while gobbling up the Antilles. Hispaniola was easy enough as a target (despite the fact it's much stronger in my personal file, as the island has steel). The United States started stampeding across Canada, so I started massing some spare troops in Mexico to protect them if they came under attack... all while waging a war of opportunity against Brazil (which was getting dogpiled by every other power courtesy of military alliances) that snagged me three more cities.
As soon as I had access to military alliances and a stack of troops in Mexico, I declared war, because America's growing power is unacceptable to a nation that is planning to rule Latin America.
The Americans haven't been launching any real counterattacks, and my small ships are Zerging whatever battleships they send my way. We also kicked them out of Cuba in a single turn by combining Naval Infantry and some artillery in a massive invasion.
This game also has a rare trend: France ended up being the dominant colonial power. While Britain steamrolls Africa 90% of the time in my experience, every so often France ends up steamrolling them instead, likely due to better luck. France has devoured pretty much all of Northern Africa in one war after another. They're currently devouring Southeast Asia and I think only China (which has made off with most of the European concessions) can stop them there. As soon as I'm done with the United States, I may just begin a witchhunt against French territories, as I don't like their ability to bring firepower against me from Africa and Europe.
All the while, Britain's avoided losing too much of India (normally the Ottomans seize it), instead kicking the Turks out of Arabia and everything but Iraq and Syria. They did lose some of India to Tibet (lolwat) and Portugal (double lolwat), though.
In most games, I'm a major power who is able to rally everyone against Britain and then the United States. It appears in absence of my leadership, everyone's instead obtained catharsis by going to war with each other. I stopped keeping track, but the military alliances are flying everywhere left and right. Only France has really gained anything, having taken over most of Iberia. Both China and Britain have declared war on Tibet, so I assume that border guard is gone, and it won't be too long before China gains the ability to conquer India.
Africa's become a chaotic patchwork since former allies are turning on each other at a moment's notice. Everyone else is just aimlessly declaring war on each other, and there is bloodshed everywhere.
Most excellent.